Big Questions Now That Europeans Can Edit Google Search Results

Attendees line up to enter the Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco in May 2013.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Attendees line up to enter the Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco in May 2013.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In case you missed it, Europe's highest court has set a new precedent: Individuals in 28 European countries can now request the removal of search results they consider harmful. Is this ruling a big win for the individual? Or does this break the Internet?

Companies like Google already routinely field takedown requests for material that violates defamation or copyright, but this is different. The unappealable ruling Tuesday by the European Court of Justice requires search engines to consider takedown requests that are merely embarrassing or harmful.

"Data belongs to the individual, not to the company," said EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, who hailed the ruling. "Unless there is a good reason to retain this data, an individual should be empowered — by law — to request erasure of this data."

While the original information sources won't disappear, and offline records do exist, this decision does remove the ease of finding information with just a few clicks.

"This is a disappointing ruling for search engines and online publishers in general," Google said in a statement. The company is still combing through all the potential questions that stem from it. A few things we're wondering: